Zero to Infinity
by Ryuuza
Summary: Hikago drabbles. Tsutsui is caught watching Kaga change, Akari muses on friendships, Hikaru eats ramen... Shounen-ai.


_Notes: _Just a collection of Hikaru no Go drabbles I've written over the past couple of months. Random pieces.

_Disclaimer:_ I no own.

_Warnings: _Shounen-ai. I don't think there are any spoilers though… Multiple pairings. Kaga/Tsutsui, Aki/Hika mainly.

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**Oushou**

Tsutsui adjusted his glasses as he stared pensively at the goban. He itched to move—to put his stone down—but it wasn't his turn. He had to wait.

He flicked a glance up at his opponent.

Kaga was leaning back against his chair, lazily fanning himself with his Oushou fan. His brows were creased with thought, eyes narrowed under that red-brown hair. There was an impatient frown on his lips.

Tsutsui wondered sometimes why Kaga was willing to play so many games of go with him (despite constant griping and grousing) when he obviously loved his shougi more.

Long fingers tapped idly against the tabletop.

The sound accompanied the ticking of the clock, hanging from the wall opposite the window. It was only an hour or so after school and many students were still on campus at assorted clubs or sports practices.

Today was not a meeting day for the Go Club. Shindou had left right after school to play Touya. Tsutsui wondered why he was still here.

Kaga placed his stone down.

Tsutsui looked at it. He raised his gaze up to Kaga's again, confused this time. "Wha-?"

Kaga leaned over and kissed him.

"Loser buys dinner, right?" Kaga was smirking.

Tsutsui blinked, flushed red.

"Ah— Um…" He took a breath and resisted the urge to touch his mouth in shock. There were thoughts he hadn't dared to think flooding his mind and a lingering taste of cigarette smoke in his mouth. He looked at Kaga. "All you had to do was ask," he said.

----

**Bowl of Ramen**

"Is that ramen?"

Hikaru glared up at the questioning voice. "I like ramen, okay?" he said defensively.

"Well, if you can't cook…" Akira shrugged and sat down beside him in the booth.

After another mouthful, Hikaru swallowed and snapped, "Who says I can't cook? Maybe I just _like_ ramen!"

"Like you just said you do."

"Yeah!"

Akira smiled.

"So don't go making all those stupid assumptions or sounding all snotty just because you think I can't cook or something," rambled Hikaru, managing somehow to scowl and scarf down his bowl of ramen at the same time.

"I'll have you know I can cook lots of stuff! I just like ramen sometimes, y'know, because I don't have to cook 'em—which doesn't mean I _can't_ cook—and they're good and—"

Akira leaned over his shoulder, interrupting. "Can I have a bite?"

Hikaru stared at him.

"Okay," he said.

----

**Autumn Colors**

The leaves had turned color and glowed a happy gold, red, and orange against the blue of the sky. Waya hurried past the trees unheedingly, brisk cold air burning his lungs, the chill nipping at him through his hoodie.

Waya was looking for Shindou.

The boy hadn't turned up for the custom game of go that afternoon and that left Waya worried, for some reason. He told himself he just wanted to yell at Hikaru for skipping out on him without so much as a phone call, and shoved his hands inside his pockets.

He shivered a little. It was unseasonable to be this cold this early.

He thought about the color of Hikaru's eyes and the way he laughed and the way he shouted and how he determinedly loved his ramen. He thought about the way Hikaru focused intently on the goban during the game, the way his fingers held the go stone, carefully, gently, but with hidden purpose.

A breeze blew by and Waya hunched his shoulders against it, rounding a corner.

Shindou was sitting at his favorite ramen shop, slurping down his dinner with gusto, and across from him sat Touya Akira.

Waya stopped and stood there, on the corner of a busy Tokyo sidewalk, and looked at them, the breeze ruffling his hair.

He wanted to be angry, wanted to storm up to them and yell at Hikaru, to demand just what the hell he was doing, blowing him off and just to sit with that damned Touya. He wanted to rant, to hit something, wanted to see Hikaru look up at him, guilt and something else flickering in his eyes.

Slowly, Waya turned and walked back around the corner.

Akira had found Hikaru.

Multi-colored leaves fell around Waya as he headed home, head ducked down to avoid the chill in the air.

----

**Firsts**

Akari had been friends with Hikaru for a long time. She remembered his loud antics as a four-year-old, remarkably pleased with himself for dumping his juice all over his sneakers. She remembered the first time he'd tried ramen and how he'd managed to drop the noodles all over the place. She remembered when he'd gotten bored and dyed his hair, much to his mother's dismay.

She remembered when they had found the go board in his grandfather's attic, if only because he had fainted and she'd been out of her mind with worry.

She hadn't known then that it would lead to all the things he was now. She hadn't known he'd develop a passion beyond any she could imagine, for a simple game of white and black stones and fierce territoriality. She hadn't known he'd get so good in such a short amount of time, that he'd be so amazing, that he'd turn pro, that he'd dedicate so much of his time to games and more games and…

Akari hadn't known he'd spend so much time away from her.

She hadn't known that he'd find someone else to while away the hours, not talking about silly things or laughing at each other, but to battle with an intensity she'd never seen in him before.

Akari had never seen Hikaru as more than a friend, but she had never pictured losing him to Touya Akira either.

Her life went on, because life did things like that, because the passage of time was inevitable, but sometimes Akari took a break from her friends, from her studies, and reflected on how much she missed her best friend.

Shindou Hikaru… The young, focused new prodigy in the pro go world; the bleached-banged, loud, ramen-loving best friend she'd grown up with.

Sometimes it seemed so hard to reconcile the two images.

She rarely saw him anymore, and when she did, he was usually with Touya.

Akari propped her chin in her hand and stared at the picture of Hikaru and Touya she'd cut out of a recent magazine. They stood beside each other, Hikaru's smile bright and wide as always, eyes conveying a warmth she missed, and Touya's smile, though smaller, was just as genuine and comfortable.

It made her heart hurt a little, looking at the picture, because more than just missing her best friend, she also wished she had someone like he did. Someone who was always by his side, smiling so comfortably, snapping at him when he was stupid, holding him, encouraging him, challenging him to be better, someone who could change him and complete him.

She wished she had someone the way Hikaru had Akira. Someone to love.

Akari missed her best friend a lot. But she was happy for him. And even if she rarely saw him anymore and missed a lot of the most important events in his life now, a lot more "firsts," she could always say she had been there for his first love.

And she'd always be his first best friend.

----

**A Lunch Break's Epiphany**

Tsutsui hadn't meant to be spying on Kaga as he changed. Kaga agreed that he probably hadn't meant to be _caught_ spying. Tsutsui argued back that it was all Kaga's fault anyway—who changed their clothes _in public_?

It was a warm and sunny day, so Tsutsui had decided to take his lunch outside. A few friends joined him on the benches, talking and laughing, moving from school to classmates to various other subjects. Finishing his lunch and disposing of the trash, Tsutsui decided he'd take a little walk in the remaining time. His stomach felt a little uncomfortable—maybe he'd eaten too quickly.

He wandered around the well-kept grounds of the school and found himself in a mostly deserted area near the west side gate. He thought he should go back before the lunch period ended and turned to do so.

A scuffling noise from around the corner caught his attention. Curious, he pivoted again and made his way over to discover the source of the noise—he paused when he heard a muffled curse, realizing it was definitely a person, most likely a student, and came to a complete halt when his eyes confirmed that deduction.

A familiar redhead was half-clothed, struggling into the white uniform shirt, annoyed as one sleeve hung inside-out.

Tsutsui blinked, speechless, as Kaga finally thrust his arm through the sleeve and left the shirt unbuttoned as he swiftly undid his belt and shucked his pants down his legs—

_Jeans_, noted Tsutsui dimly as his cheeks lit on fire. What was Kaga _doing_? He remained motionless, too embarrassed to call attention to himself now and too afraid that backing off what make some sort of noise and cause the other boy to look up.

Kaga pulled his uniform pants out of his bag and cursed at the wrinkled black fabric. Undaunted, he slid them on over his (_green_, Tsutsui noted in the same vague, embarrassed manner) boxers and fastened them. He looped the belt back on and finally went to work on the buttons of his shirt.

_I wonder where he gets those muscles_, Tsutsui thought, noticing the taller boy's taut stomach. _He can't get those from playing shougi_. Maybe Kaga played basketball or swam or something. An image of a wet, half-naked Kaga appeared in his mind and Tsutsui flushed redder, thinking that now was _not_ a good time for his ridiculous crush on Kaga to manifest itself.

Speaking of Kaga, he had tucked his neatly-buttoned shirt in and was now shrugging on the black uniform jacket, leaving it undone in a show of his usual insouciance.

Tsutsui wondered if now would be a good time to leave, before the other boy walked right into him.

"Oi, Tsutsui," came a faintly amused voice, "I know you're there."

Tsutsui desperately wished to disappear, or at least to have a larger vocabulary of curse words at his disposal as he had a mental heart attack.

"Um," he said weakly.

Kaga looked up at him, grinning, as he stuffed the last of his street clothes into his bag and slung it over his shoulder. "Yo. Enjoy the show?"

Oh, his face couldn't _possibly_ get any redder.

"I-I didn't mean to," he stammered, waving his hands around, distressed, "I mean, I was walking after lunch to settle my stomach and I heard you but I didn't know it was you, I mean, I thought it was just—well, I didn't know what it was, which is why I looked, and I saw you—I mean, no, not really, I didn't see anything, it's just that, I was, I mean…" He was distinctly aware that he was babbling like an idiot.

Kaga had strolled over to him, wearing a very familiar smirk. He slung an arm of Tsutsui's shoulder as he guided them back toward the lunch area. "No problem. Feel free to look, anytime."

Again, Tsutsui blushed, then cursed his uncontrollable reddening instincts. It took him another moment before he recalled himself enough to ask, "Why were you in street clothes?"

"The art of skipping, my friend, is not that easy." Kaga grinned and ran his free hand through his hair, the dark red locks lifting and falling back over his eyes. "All the streets around the school recognize our uniform. If they saw me out there during school, they'd call in and report, jackasses that they all are." He shrugged. "But they don't even give a second glance to some random guy in street clothes."

"I see…"

Kaga winked at him. "It's loads of fun. You can come with me sometime."

Tsutsui looked horrified. "I couldn't skip class!"

The taller boy laughed at him, sliding his arm down Tsutsui's side. "You never know. One day I may even convince you to try a smoke." He proceeded to cop a very thorough feel of Tsutsui's bottom. "Or something better." He leered exaggeratedly.

Tsutsui didn't manage the wipe his face of his heated blush or his body of the memory of the touch by the time they returned to class. Kaga considered his goal for the day fulfilled.

----

**Comfort Zone**

"You make me want to cry," Akira whispered to Hikaru, pressing their foreheads together.

Hikaru grinned. "Because I can't cook anything but ramen?"

"Because you have the fashion sense of a blind donkey."

Akira found himself tumbled onto the carpeted floor, the blond sitting atop him pointing a dramatic finger. "I challenge you!" he exclaimed.

"To what?"

"A game of go!"

Akira laughed. "That's so overdone, Hikaru." He smirked. "Besides, you know I'll beat you."

"Ooh, we'll see about that!" Hikaru said crossly, leaning down and draping himself over Akira's chest. "I'll defeat you by five and a half moku."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."

Akira looped his arms around the warm body pressing on his. He wove his fingers loosely through Hikaru's hair, smiling as the other boy nuzzled his face into his neck. "Or we could stay like this," he said.

"Yeah." Hikaru's agreement was muffled as he heaved a content sigh. He wriggled closer. "Akira?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

A small smile crossed Akira's face. "I love you too," he said softly.

They lay in comfortable silence for a while, each reflecting on how they had never expected a relationship like this, and how they had ended up like they were now, and how lucky they were.

Then… "Akira?"

"What?"

"Have you put on weight?"

"_What?_"

"Well, y'see, I'm lying on something and it feels like your stomach got bigger or something."

"That's the corner of your vest, Hikaru."

"…oh."

There was another moment of silence and then Akira laughed. "Fashion sense of a blind donkey, I keep telling you."

"Hey!"

----

_end_

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Please review! -love-


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